14 DAY TRIAL // From the data provided by IBM thorough the Global Business Security Index report for May it turns out the number of phishing attacks has increased in this period with 226%, and the number of viruses has increased with 33 percent.
Security experts say that this significant increase was caused by the high number of zombie systems hijacked by hackers. These systems are used, without their users' knowledge, to send humongous amounts of spam messages which look like official e-mails sent by banks, insurance companies etc, whose purpose is to convince users to reveal their personal information.
Of these e-mail messages that have circulated in May, 30% carried with them a virus, which is rather strange and in the same alarming considering that the number of viruses from April has decreased with 33%.
Although the phishing attacks have reached a peak in January, followed by a decrease frequency, in May, this type of attacks has exploded.
Spam was also highly active in this period, too active we might add. In May, 68.7% of the total e-mail traffic was represented by spam, but at least the figure was almost constant. The applications that allow the remote take over of a system were mostly encountered online, the hackers' main targets being the online shopping accounts or financial applications.
Kaspersky has also issued a report with June's top ten viruses. The first position is occupied by Win32.Mytob.c, with 19% of the total viral activity, followed by Win32.NetSky.q, with 11% of the traffic. The third position is occupied by Win32.Zafi.d with 5%.